Whether you’re launching a new blog, reorganizing your kitchen, running a 10K, making a career change, building a social media following, or starting any new worthwhile project, there is a long road of work ahead. And often, procrastination sets in because the first step can be the hardest. Only you can pursue the ambitious dreams and goals you have for yourself, and you need to start somewhere if you want to thrive.

I’ve been able to accomplish many goals that I’m incredibly proud of from finishing two marathons to moving from the midwest to California to climbing Half Dome to building a successful career in Customer Success. One of the most important steps to many of these successes has been a masterful approach to taking initiative. If you can build a habit of taking initiative on important goals, you’ll be on your way to achieving your dreams. These are my tried and true tips for taking initiative towards your goals.

Focus

Only pick one goal to begin at one time and focus on it relentlessly until you have made significant progress. Building the initial momentum of any goal or project is incredibly difficult, and it will require your full energy and attention. Once you have built the momentum, you can then reallocate time to begin your next journey, but don’t spread yourself too thin in the initial phase of your project. Pick one big goal or project and write it down somewhere you will see it often.

Vision to the why

There’s a lot of research available about the power of visioning your successes, and this type of exercise can help build motivation for taking initiative on your project. Take some time to reflect on what the outcome or end state of your goal or project looks and feels like, and try to imagine yourself in that state. Then, dig a bit deeper to uncover the “why” behind the positive feelings and outcomes. Why is this the wild and crazy dream you want to accomplish now? What feeling resonates most in your vision? Finally, capture a few notes about this vision and the associated feelings somewhere near where you wrote down your goal.

Build a plan

Good planning is key to any success, and your goals are no exception. In order to take initiative on your big goals, it can help to have a realistic picture of how you’ll get there. Start by jotting down the big milestones you’ll need to accomplish in order to achieve your goal. Include the timeline for accomplishing those milestones so you can hold yourself accountable along the way. Try to be as realistic as possible as you build out your high-level plan so that you can set yourself up for success. Set the first milestone as “Build out plan for goal” so that you’ll be on your way after this first step.

Get granular

After you have a high-level plan of milestones, the next step is to build out the minute detailed action items that will get you to the first milestone. Get as granular as possible, ideally capturing everything that will take you 5 minutes or more. So for example, if my goal is to launch a blog, and my first milestone is to write an article, my action items might be:

Brainstorm 5 ideas for blog post
Prioritize best ideas and pick one
Write outline for post
Write first paragraph of post
Write remainder of first raft of post
Edit post
Find images for quotes
Decide on pull quotes for post
Publish first blog post

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

— Mark Twain

Start small

After building out the action items for your first milestone, add one more item to the top of the list for something small and fun. For the above example this might be, “Read 2 favorite blog posts for inspiration” or “Turn on focus music for writing” or “Make up of coffee and drink at desk”. Adding in a quick, easy win at the top of your list can be the tipping point to move forward on your work.

Prepare your environment

Now that you have a clear goal, a motivating vision, a high-level plan, and a detailed to do list, you’re almost ready. The last step is to get any resources, information, or input you need in the first set of milestones. Doing this upfront can avoid a work-halting roadblock to ruin your momentum. If you’re writing blog posts, make sure you have a medium to write on and a desk or space you can write productively. If you’re training for a 5K, make sure you have running shoes and a good playlist. Get everything you’ll need for any of the action items you listed in the two steps above.

Begin!

You’re ready to conquer your goals. When you have the time and are in the right mindspace, take a look at your goal, read through your vision notes, and take out your list of action items. Look at the first item on the list and do it! Then, check it off and move on to the next item on your list. In no time, you should have a few items completed and have built momentum towards your goal. If you get stuck at any point, try breaking the current action item you’re stuck on into smaller components and add another fun, easy step at the top. Then, get back to work and continue on!

I’ve found these steps to be foolproof in tackling any challenge worth doing, and I hope you’ll find them helpful as well. Feel free to comment with other ideas, tips, or to share what goals you’re ready to take initiative on.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

— Lao Tzu

Happy Beginnings!

Taking initiative at anything in life